Democratic National Committee Chairman and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean visited Hanover on Friday to meet with residents of the Kendall retirement community. Dean is currently on a multi-state tour campaigning for the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, D-Ill. In an interview with The Dartmouth, Dean said New Hampshire will be critical in the general election as it is the only New England state not leaning toward Obama, who is currently only 0.7 percent ahead of the Republican presumptive nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. in the state, according to the Real Clear Politics average. Dean said Obama is a better choice for older Americans, arguing Obama has better judgement on national security issues and does not want to privatize social security, unlike McCain. "To have national security you have to have respect for America at home and abroad, and to do that you have to engage in the kind of relationships that Senator Obama has talked about," Dean said. "You don't talk down to your allies, you don't treat them as junior partners."
Scientific journals should release comprehensive guidelines on the disclosure of authors' financial interests, according to speakers at a science watchdog conference and reported on by The Chronicle of Higher Education on Monday. Scientists and ethicists at the conference, hosted by the Center for Science in Public Interest, argued that while journals have increasingly implemented rules on disclosing conflicts of interest, these rules vary from publication to publication, often making it difficult for authors of journal articles to correctly comply. Some journal editors at the conference questioned whether the level of specificity proposed may keep some publications from adopting the rules.
Most recent graduates of Ph.D. programs do not feel prepared to take on the responsibilities of a junior faculty position, according to a report released in June by the TIAA-CREF Institute, the research division of the financial services company. "Their sense of becoming 'very effective' in their responsibilities improves markedly after a few years, but there are still areas such as advising, serving on committees, grant writing and interdisciplinary collaboration where they confess inadequacy and where additional faculty development supports could be highly beneficial," the report states. Similarly, the report found that the graduates spend less time than expected doing research and more time teaching and attending faculty committee meetings. The institute interviewed individuals who were within the first five years of their careers.
